There are times when, with all the good will in the world, a motivated and hard-working student just seems to get worse instead of better. What is going on? In my experience, most singers fall into certain types, when it comes to practice. There are those who treat voice lessons like a kind of massage therapy; they arrive for the lesson, work hard, and then don’t think about technique again until the next lesson. This type of student will seem not to progress much from one lesson to the next. They won’t actually get much worse; but any progress you made at the last lesson has to be relearned, again and again. “OK”, you might say, “if only I had a serious student who really practiced between lessons.” Be careful what you wish for. Among the most challenging students to teach are those who work hard and get worse between lessons. When this happens, perhaps the first thing you should ask yourself as a teacher, is whether the student is being overly zealous in carrying out...
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